Link Building Strategies: Tips & Techniques That Work

Although link building had been underrated for a few years, it’s getting back on top again. And it’s hardly surprising! Building links can be extremely effective when you want to make your website stand out in the Search Engine Results Page. It’s important to pay attention to your Search Engine Optimization, though. Most likely, optimizing your website for the chosen keywords may not be enough to get you noticed, especially at the beginning. This is when link building becomes useful – and here are some tips & techniques that actually work.

How can link building help SEO?

Let’s start with what building links really consists of. It’s all about getting featured on other sites with a backlink to yours, and you can make that happen in various ways (don’t worry, you’ll find out about them soon).

Why is link building important, though? Links are mostly useful for search engines, which constantly track new websites to determine how well should they rank in the Search Engine Results Page for the given keywords. Now, building links is actually one of the tactics used for Search Engine Optimization purposes. The more backlinks your website has, the more trustworthy it appears to the search engines and thus – should rank higher. Don’t forget that it’s also quality of the links that counts. If the sources of your backlinks seem shady in any way, they will not only be useless when it comes to determining your rank in SERP but can actually get your webpage penalized. In order to avoid that, always make sure you create relevant, quality content and build links in a transparent manner, without violating Google’s guidelines.

Luckily, hyperlinks are not only meant for robots, but they also help Internet users to navigate between web pages in search of more information and related data. That’s precisely why you should make your website stand out in the first place – to attract the users and provide them with valuable content.

How to build links for your website?

Although building links is not always easy, there are many tips and tricks that you can take advantage of. Try implementing a few different techniques first to check whether they bring any results, and decide what’s best for your website. Remember that it may take time to have your website well-optimized and displayed for the chosen queries. Still, SEO and link building are definitely worth the effort.    

First of all, you should definitely start blogging. If there are regular updates on your website, search engine bots will be coming back to it every once in a while, just to index new blog posts. Having a blog also means creating a lot of useful content, which can then be promoted in various ways, depending on the topic and your target group. The bigger the audience you reach, the better for your business. Actually, increased brand awareness will not only get you those backlinks you aim for but can potentially boost conversion rates for your website.     

Setting up your own blog is only the beginning, though. What else can you do to boost your link building and Search Engine Optimization efforts? Below you can find a few tips and tricks, meant exactly for that purpose.

• Create quality content. There’s no point in creating anything if won’t provide any value to the readers and won’t encourage them to share the piece at least within their social networks. The more engaging and well-written content you publish, the better for your blog (and ultimately your website). Especially if you manage to attract relevant media and influencers. If so, taking your link building from here will be a lot easier and more effective.

• Choose keywords wisely. Make sure you include (a few times, actually) the relevant keywords on both your website and blog. Choose wisely! Take into account the ratio of the search volume to the competitiveness. Usually the lower the competition, the better. Don’t aim for very popular and inadequate phrases and try to look for keywords people actually search for. If your content is well-optimized, it will more likely show up in the results page when anyone looks for a similar topic in the search engine.

• Build relationships and ask for backlinks. Creating valuable content is one thing, but getting people into noticing you is a different story – especially if you’ve just started your website and/or blog. Reach out to your peers and try to establish exemplary terms of cooperation to bring you both the results you aim for. You could easily exchange blog posts and include the backlinks to your websites.

• Try guest posting. Speaking of exchanging blog posts – guest posting opportunities let you do exactly that, and you don’t even need to establish any relationship with the site owner beforehand. Try reaching out to the industry-related media as well – maybe you can contribute your content in exchange for a backlink? As usual, the more reliable the source, the better for your website. Nonetheless, except for writing a few such posts yourself, you can also provide a similar opportunity to other bloggers on your site. They will gladly share their own post afterward, which is a great way to both promote your blog and get you some more links.

• Consider sponsored content. Especially if you have a decent budget for advertising already set aside, you can choose to pay for well-written articles and blog posts instead of regular ads and campaigns. Once again, the effectiveness will depend on the source. You can research them yourself, or take advantage of the specific networks and platforms, such as Whitepress.net, Blogsvertise.com, or Syndicateads.net. They are meant for listing sites that accept paid articles and guest posts and give a possibility to order a publication through them.     

• • Republish and repurpose your content. Make a good use of blogging communities (such as Inbound) and submit your blog posts to have them republished elsewhere, not only on your blog. You can also use Medium or LinkedIn Publishing for that purpose. Also, if you put a lot of effort into writing something worthwhile, it probably has the potential to be repurposed. You can easily turn your blog post into a podcast, video, infographics or a set of slides, and then publish them on dedicated platforms (such as SlideShare, or even YouTube). Don’t forget to include relevant links, though.
  • Distribute your content as much as you can. Republishing and repurposing your content essentially serve as means of distribution –  with the purpose not only to promote what you’ve written but also to include backlinks in other places. For starters, explore social media, especially relevant groups. It’s a great tool to increase the awareness of your website, get your content noticed, reach a wider audience and hopefully turn them into loyal readers. Actually, social bookmarking is also considered as relevant backlinks, no matter which social network you choose. Also, you can become active on Quora and include the backlinks to your website in the answers you provide.

• Get featured in relevant directories. There are many directories online that are widely used by Internet users and help them look for relevant information. Apart from featuring your website among other similar sources, you also have the chance to post a link to your webpage, which should be your main focus at this stage.

Link building strategy – how to come up with one?

Now, you already know all the possible ways you could build links to your website. But those single activities, especially if performed from time to time, might not help much if you don’t come up with a proper strategy. Therefore, once you figure out what works best and what you are actually able to do yourself, it may be high time to introduce an actual strategy to your overall SEO efforts.

How to do it?

1. Identify your audience. If you aim to get more readers (which is probably one of the main goals when having a website and/or a blog), you should first determine what audience your content resonates with. Try to identify what works best and what are the ways to improve the content on your own channels before you start building links for good.
2. Check what are the popular sources within the identified audience. You can use this knowledge in two ways – either collaborate with the influential website owners and bloggers or try to guest post for them in order to get some backlinks and get noticed by your target group. Both of the solutions are not only perfectly acceptable but also very effective.
3. Polish your content strategy. In order to attract the right audience and quality sources, you should make sure that what you publish is attractive and high-quality. Otherwise, your whole link building strategy may not turn out that effective in the long run.
4. Choose the best ways to distribute and promote your content. Although there are some tips and techniques that work for most brands, when defining a strategy to boost your Search Engine Optimization and link building efforts you should always take into account the specificity of your own website and/or blog. Good strategies are always tailored to your content and goals.
5. Wait to get featured. If you do it all well, you should get noticed in no time. Then, getting those backlinks you want will become easier than ever.

Link building is a great way to get your website rank higher in the Search Engine Results Page. How is that? Backlinks help in getting more referral traffic and increasing awareness about your website. The more reliable the sources, the better – as being mentioned in relevant publications will surely draw attention to your content and it will make you seem like an authority in the given topic to the search engine. There are many dubious pages out there that accept guest posts and/or paid articles, but those can easily harm your link building activities.

That’s precisely why it’s important to define your strategy carefully and choose the sources for any backlinks wisely. Remember – it’s all about quality, not quantity.